Life

Mark Allen: Looking Back on the Early Days

An IRONMAN legend revisits the roots of a growing sport in this three-part series.

by Mark Allen

The only reason I’m writing this today is because of something that happened 40 years ago—a race that took place on the Island of Oahu in Hawaii.

The race I am speaking of involved three normal sports that most of us did as kids: swimming, riding our bikes, and running. But the distances of this first-time event were so gigantic that pretty much everyone thought it was impossible: A 2.4-mile ocean swim, a 112-mile bike ride around the Island, and a 26.2-mile marathon strung together into one continuous demanding challenge. Fifteen brave athletes raced that day in an attempt to simply cross the finish line, and in doing so, changed the face of endurance sports forever.

On February 18, 1978 the IRONMAN was born.

There was no midnight cutoff. You could take as long as you needed to finish. There was no qualifying to gain entry—15 was not exactly a bloated number of competitors. There was nothing aero or sleek. No one wore anything that shouted "I am a triathlete." It was more like a band of misfits heading out to have a good time, if that is possible covering 140.6 miles under your own power in one day.

In the end, 12 finished. Gordon Haller was crowned the first ever IRONMAN champ. His time? 11:46:40. Still pretty impressive even by modern standards. It was extraordinary, considering there were no coaches and no reservoir of knowledge to tap into to help him get ready. In ninth was John Collins, who, along with his wife Judy, dreamed up this crazy contest in the first place. His finishing time was 17:00:38. Yes, if there had been the midnight cutoff, John would have needed to squeeze another 38 seconds out of his race to be considered an official IRONMAN finisher.

Like a seed that had just sprouted, the IRONMAN slowly took root and grew over the next few years. In 1979, Lyn Lemaire became the first women to complete the race. She was the only female competitor that year and ended up finishing fifth overall in a field the same size as the previous (first) year.

Just after that race, Collins was pondering turning the event into a relay instead of an individual event. But as IRONMAN’s fortune would have it, Sports Illustrated writer Barry McDermott had come to Oahu to cover a golf tournament. He happened to see the IRONMAN taking place, and was so drawn by what he witnessed that he wrote a ten-page account for the magazine. The calls came rolling in to Collins, who quickly discovered that he didn’t need to make it into a relay to get traction.

Like a seed that had just sprouted, the IRONMAN slowly took root and grew...

The story is well accounted for from there. Tom Warren won for the men in 1979 and was interviewed by Johnny Carson on TheTonight Show. In 1982, ABC's Wide World of Sports captured one of the most dramatic finish line crawls of all time and suddenly the infant sport of triathlon was thrust onto the world's endurance sports radar.

But what supercharged its momentum through the 1980s was IRONMAN’s extraordinary ability to highlight the human spirit. It never looked easy. It always had a quality of complete uncertainty. Every athlete racing came with the same question: "Can I finish it? Will I be one of those blessed people to cross the IRONMAN finish line before the stroke of midnight?"

Uncertainty is the hallmark of amazing. It’s the spark that ignites commitment. It unlocks the door to a person’s real potential. It helps them get ready to embrace and endure extreme challenge. When roped in and overcome, uncertainty always makes a great story.

The race became a dream for thousands around the globe. It was a chance to personally fly to the moon and touch the stars. Competing at the IRONMAN in Hawaii had became an iconic sporting landmark where mere mortals could test themselves at what seemed like mythical proportions. It was where the ordinary were transformed into the extraordinary. And the uncertainty of what it would take guaranteed the race would unfold with raw human spirit and deep inspiration.

Fueling my first six IRONMAN World Championships in Hawaii was the same magic we all saw in the race. I floated in Kailua Bay on race morning like everyone else, waiting for the starting cannon completely enveloped in uncertainty. None of us knew if we had what it took to finish. But I knew that if I could, something inside me would be changed forever.

Yes, I was also hunting another goal. I wanted to be the very first across that amazing finish line. But that wasn’t the spark that put each of those first six races in the rarified air of human experience. You see, at the time, doing THE IRONMAN in Hawaii had not been normalized. It was still like going into an outer space of endurance athletics; it was our chance to experience sport from a life-altering perspective.

Today, IRONMAN is a little more normal. Most people know someone who has completed one. Think of it as if you were walking along the beach and kicked something with your toe only to look down and see a huge diamond laying in the sand. You would be amazed. You would go home and tell all your friends. But if you found a diamond every time you walked on that same beach it would eventually lose some of its luster.

I’m certainly not saying that IRONMAN is any different today than it was in the past. But you may have to look past the vast community of people who have finished the distance to see that even so, the accomplishment is still—no matter how you frame it—completely amazing. It’s still uncertain. It’s still unpredictable. You will be demanded to go beyond your fears and open the door to your fullest capabilities. Chasing your dream and finishing an IRONMAN is just as priceless and precious today as it was 40 years ago.